One year since the beginning

Tomorrow will be mark one year since I started in this journey (properly).

One year ago I decided that I had enough of hiding beneath all the layers of fat.

A beautiful friend who I met through mother's group had been going to Weight Watchers after having her gorgeous son and I had noticed all of her baby weight coming off. I asked her about what she had been doing and decided I would go along to WW with her. It was time to face the scales and see what they said.

104.2kg

WTF! This was bad. I never really saw what was really in the mirror but it was made crystal clear at that moment.

Yes I had a baby 5 months earlier but I had lost the baby weight within 2 weeks of giving birth (I was quite healthy during pregnancy and only gained 8 kilos). What I had to lose now was the chocolate, junk food and couch weight that I had put on whilst on maternity leave. 10kilograms had been gained in 5months! That's shocking! But I suppose that is what eating at all hours, eating high sugar/fat foods just to get that quick energy fix, no exercise due to being so tired and just eating a lot of processed convenience foods will do to your body.

So I began the journey with WeightWatchers and had my good and bad weeks (mainly good) and kept this up until December when I had lost a total of 11kg. The program worked for me. It taught me a lot and I loved that I never ever felt like I was on a diet. It was little changes that bought results on the scale. I think it was also the first year in ages that I didnt gain weight over Christmas. I kept my eating during the festive season under control. It was after Christmas that I quit WW as i jsut felt liek I was wasting money just to go there and only lose a few hundred grams so I stopped going (when I stopped going to WW that things started to go pear shaped again and I gained some weight).

After a massive momentary lapse of concentration,

I  had renewed motivation when talk of going to Fiji came up as some friends are getting married there!

YAY!!!! A holiday!!!

Oh F*%K!!!!! Swimmers!!!!

The thought of wearing swimmers terrified me!!! Most Summer's I would just hide away inside in the air con but this was not an option on this holiday.

Time to get to it again!

I started to really make use of the treadmill sitting in my lounge room, spend less time on the couch and now have a toddler to chase after. At times it has been hard work...really hard work, but I am making progress.

From then until now has been pretty well documented over this blog.

I thought seeming it has been one year on my journey I should include my progress. You have probably seen some of these pictures of my progress on my blog but here are some photos of me in the last year anyway.

October 2009 - 97kg

February 2010 - 97kg (after regaining some of the weight I had lost)

May 2010 - 96kg

June 2010 - 88kg

July 2010 - 85kg

July 2010 - 84kg

August 2010 - 80kg

August 2010 - 80kg

I am feeling so much lighter. I have lost almost 24.2kilograms which is 53.2pounds and I can live life.

I hope that in the next year I can reach my goal of 70kg.

Then bypass it by at least 5kg taking me to 65kg and hold that weight for the duration of the year.

Extremes of me (Part One) - Pictures & Past!

I used to work at a gym (back in my uni days).

So many good times and happy memories.

But so much pressure (not from others, but from myself). I only worked on reception but I was constantly seeing hot bodies come in and working out. It's funny because I never, ever noticed the people that were overweight, because to me, I was the only one there who was overweight. Everyone else looked better than me. Again with my warped sense of body image.

I never really let it show as I relied on my personality to get me through.

So I started working out.

Spin classes were my favourite. I soon became addicted doing 2 a day some days plus other workouts in the gym. It was kind of easy to work out at the gym when as soon as you finish work you were there.

I liked the idea of being in a dark room, with loud music pumping, imagining going on a journey on my bike. I liked racing other people and knowing the fact that in my eyes, I won the race as I tried my hardest, even though nobody else was racing.

But it wasn't enough.

I was doing promotions for the gym and honestly thought how could I be fat and promote a gym so I had to step it up (should read step it down) in regards to food intake.

I looked like this and thought I was fat.

Sorry it's not very clear. It is a scanned photo from the years before digital cameras. I am on the left

(see I still have boobs no matter how much weight I lose and yes they are real).

And I had a flat stomach and no muffin top like this,

but still was not happy.

Food was my biggest battle.

I soon began to hate food. I would aim to burn more calories that what I ate. So if I consumed 500calories, I would make sure I burned 600 calories. I never understood the whole calorie thing. I just knew that to lose weight you had to follow the equation of calories in = calories out. However I never knew what that equation meant until I recently read exhotgirl's blog about Basal Metabolic Rate. Click here to find out your BMR.

So anyway food became too hard and I decided I would just make it really easy for myself and just eat
1 (yes one) piece of fish a day!

Sometimes if I was really hungry, I would have 2 pieces. It was a real splurge to have 2 pieces. How pathetic is that! I used to take so many vitamins to make up for the lack of v&m I was getting from not eating food.

I cringe at the amount of damage I would have done to my body but at the time, it did not even come into my mind. When you are 20 years old, none of that seems to matter.

Something had to give. I remember the day that it did. I had worked out in the morning before work, came home and decided to go for a run around my local area. It was about 8:45pm. I had been running about 20 minutes when my heart started to feel funny. My head started to go blurry and I knew something was very wrong. I was scared. I had to get down before I fell down. I needed water desperately. I basically crawled my way to someones tap at the side of their house and sat there leaning against the wall drinking water. Breathing. Just breathing.

Thoughts of being found like this, what my parents would think, finding out the damage that I had done to my body. That was enough for me. Enough to say no more.

I soon left the gym and began to eat more (a lot more). The weight crept on and the exercise disappeared. And then the other side of the extreme became my life but that's a whole nudda post!

It is so important to understand where you have come from. What worked and what didn't work as it all leads to where you are now.

Part 2 will be coming soon with more on me at my biggest (shudder)!
The other extreme!

The Honest Truth

For half of my life, I had always felt like I was bigger than everyone else.

When I was in primary school, I played netball, reps (in centre, WA positions) and was so physically fit but I always felt like I had bigger legs than the other girls. I look back at the photos now and realise I wasn't. I have no idea what size I was a kid but no bigger than the other kids.

In high school, same thing, except I stopped playing netball, but still kept up tennis. I guess looking back I was a healthy size 12.

After high school I went to uni and was working a casual job in a cafe. I didn't drive back then and used to walk to train stations, bus stops, to the shops, etc alot. I got down to a size 10 jeans which was incredible for me. I use to be able to wear midrif tops and low cut jeans and really had the stomach to carry it off. However I never really thought I was skinny. But really I was.

Then I got my license and moved out of home at the age of 18.5yrs. I put on a lot of weight, went back up to a size 14. Looking back a lot of it was the freedom to go and get maccas and take out whenever, drinking lots with friends and just not living a healthy lifestyle. It clicked to me when I was working at a gym and my 3/4 length size 14 cotton sleeve was so tight around my arms that it didnt make sense that I was selling people memberships to a gym when I was clearly not the picture of health.

I was 20, I started hitting the spin classes (sometimes twice a day) and basically starved myself on eating 1 piece of frozen fish a day... hmm and that was healthy I got down to a size 10 again. Guys started staring at me again in approval. I looked hot for my 21st (well i thought I did LOL) and I wont lie, I was really happy. I had the confidence to strut around in sexy lingere or shorts (havent seen those days in a while)!!!!

Then I moved in with DP, aged 22.5yrs. I progressively put on weight. Over 4 yrs I put on 25kg. Over those years, I went on many diets, they would work and then I would stop and put on the weight I lost plus more. My grandparents, parents DP and DP's family all commented on what was going on with my weight. I would always get defensive and say I am happy, leave me alone.

This is where my body image was totally warped to the other extreme.

I no longer thought that I was bigger than other people, in fact i would always see people who were bigger than me and think "well I am not as big as them". I know now that I was. If not bigger. But it was like I was seeing a warped image of me in the mirror and that I was not fat. After all these years, my body image had taken a massive turn (but not for the better).

I then split from DP for a short time. I lost about 10Kgs without trying. Guys thought I was hot again (I was still probably a size 14, but a small one with very healthy curves in the right places).

I got back together with DP, put on about 5kg and after 6 months I fell pregnant. Ate anything I wanted (but didnt go overboard). During pregnancy I put on a total of 8kg. I liked my pregnant body, apart from the stretchmarks! After I had Miss Twinkle Toes, I lost 5.5kg instantly and was in my pre-pregnancy jeans within a week of having Miss TT.

That didnt last.

I then was at home all the time with a newborn and I would just eat and eat. I put on more weight over the following 6 months than I did over the 9 months of pregnancy. I was the biggest I have ever been. A size 18. Double chin, back fat, tummy fat, leg fat, cankles, you name it, I had fat there! It was at this point I knew I was fat!!

I then started going to WW with a gorgeous girl from mothers group in October last year. I had lost 10.5Kg with adding walking in 3 times a week and watching what I eat, but not really cutting anything out, just the amount.

Then Christmas came, I put on 900g, then I just lost the plot in January and put on another 900g. I stopped going to WW after Christmas as I could no longer afford it.

Anyway I am back on the wagon now after a lot of inspiration from other ladies that are doing the weight loss thing for them and seeing how well the Biggest Loser people did this year.

So please follow me on my journey.


I really hope that I can finally do this for me and no one else. And maybe.... just maybe I can be an inspiration for someone else.
Ali xo